


No Longer

by Gem_Alawas



Series: Pokemon Short Fics [3]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Monologue, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Alawas/pseuds/Gem_Alawas
Summary: Long ago, Ecruteak City was watched over by two Legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh and Lugia. However, lightning struck the tower of Lugia and it left in fear. The resulting fire killed three unknown Pokemon, and Ho-Oh revived them out of pity, transforming them into Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. After the revival of the three, the citizens of Ecruteak turned on the newly revived Legendary Beasts in fear, causing them and Ho-Oh to leave the city. I'm here to tell what I think Ho-Oh may have said as it left.
Series: Pokemon Short Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1392703
Kudos: 1





	No Longer

I must leave this town. I cannot stay after what I have seen of you humans, after what I have seen you do. You do not understand my choice, that I see. So I will tell you why I have made it, why I cannot force myself to remain. Why it is likely that no person living here shall see me again, nor your future descendants. Why is is likely that even myth will leave me behind, for I intend to vanish evermore, even from your memories. Listen well, for I will speak once before I depart from this place, for what may well be an eternity.

##### No longer shall I calm your impulses of evil.

I once was like a child, believing always in your strength, your loyalty, your giving natures when you raised your hands and praised my name, when I could hold friendly conversation atop my Tower of Bells. When fierce playful battles would play out below, the tap of feet on wood like music to my listening ears. I believed that you were as you seemed, wearing hearts on your sleeves. I thought that you were kind, gentle beings who cooperated with those who you commanded.

##### No longer can I believe such of you.

You praised me higher than you did my creator, for I stood before you in color and light while the one who created me is nothing but a hazy idea to you. I worked every day to keep clouds away from you, protect all of you from the storms, while the one to which I owe my existence never did show their face. You cheered my name, held festivals in my honor, called me your city's protector. You did the same for my counterpart, although to less extent-sensibly, for they more often caused you storms of nature and fear rather than blowing them away with soothing wings as I did.

##### No longer can I accept that praise from you.

I have told you why I will not stay here in the most basic of terms, yet the confusion on all your faces remains. You cannot grasp the obvious, the wrongness that lies in your own actions. In the past I would have attributed it to the innocence that I now know is a lie, the façade of species-wide naivete that you carry- yet now I wonder if it is foolishness, or as much of a lie as your tolerance. I now understand that the bafflement I see cannot be fully legitimate- as nothing you do truly is- yet I will play along for one last time, and explain more deeply my decision, so that if ever history looks back and wonders what happened to the Guardians of Ecruteak, they will have an answer. Hold your Krookodile tears, for they have no effect on me.

##### No longer shall I be swayed by such falsehoods.

Every hope has a point at which it dies, every body a place at which it breaks, every will a thing that causes it to falter. There is no such thing as invincibility, immortality, infallibility, or the everlasting. So my own great strength found that breaking point, and could no more hold back the storm that threatened. Yet three of you did not know to fear it, did not realize that it was not one of the gentle showers that played over the town on occasion, and the ring of attacks shared in friendly battle within my counterpart's tower accompanied the roll of thunder. I thought it would blow over without incident, as most that passed my protection did.

##### No longer can I place faith in such foolish hopes.

Lightning struck faster than even my eye could follow, striking the wing of my counterpart and setting themselves and their tower aflame. Their cry of agony echoed, half-drowned by wind and thunder, and the hungry roar of fire. I pained greatly for my counterpart and my friend, yet I found that I could do nothing-the fire I could call and send would only worsen the blaze, as would fanning it with my great wings. Blowing back the storm would stamp out the hope of rain to wash away the flames, and placing my own body over it would do nothing for my counterpart, nor the rest of the tower that my great wings could not encompass. All I could do was watch, even my voice drowned by the fury of the storm and the pain of my counterpart. My counterpart took fearful flight as the tongues of fire began to devour the platform upon which it stood, snapped from pain by fear, half-flying half-falling into the river which wound about the town.

##### No longer shall I see them perched upon their tower.

The three Pokémon that you three children brought were brave, getting you out at the cost of their own lives, not so much as crying whilst they were enveloped by merciless flame. I could feel their lives fading away as the flames burnt their bodies and the smoke filled their lungs. Perhaps like a metaphor-their life force burning lower and lower before vanishing like a dream in the sun of the morning. After what seemed like an eternity, rain began to fall and fall with ferocity, drumming against the wood of my tower, running down my beak like the tears that I shed, soaking my feathers until cold gripped my skin, extinguishing the blaze at last. That, as a matter of course, is when it worsened, the Brass Tower abruptly collapsing inwards in a cloud of dust, leaving only the bottom floors even remotely intact.

##### No longer will the city have two towers nor two guardians atop them.

I suddenly felt claustrophobic under that blanket of cold darkness, as though the clouds had descended to press against my wings and trap me, so I extended my wings and gave a powerful Sunny Day, clearing away the clouds as quick as anything. What became all too sharply clear in the sudden light is a horror I would not wish on my worst enemy. My counterpart, gone. Their tower, collapsed. The town smeared with ashes and the faces of its people looking up in fear and anguish. Three charred bodies among the rubble of the once-great tower. What they had once been, I could not tell, so disfigured were they by flame and by pain. I pitied these Pokémon for their loss- and I respected them. They died protecting the ones they cared for, a more noble death than most could ever hope for. I wanted to do something. To act in the face of tragedy, rather than let these Pokémon be buried for something that was not their doing. They deserve another chance, another life. I believed that you would surely not deny them that.

##### No longer do I believe in your sense of justice.

I called forth the very causes of their destruction, in the hopes of softening the anger that even I felt at the elements. I channeled my rage into creation rather than destruction, trying to create something great from this horror, something that you humans seem quite incapable of so much as comprehending, let alone performing yourselves. I summoned my strength and sprang, flying gently to the ruins. Bending my great head low over the three tiny bodies, I steeled my resolve and began to bring them back from the halls of the slain where they lay.

##### No longer do I believe that I was doing them a kindness.

First I called forth the spark of lightning that had caused such destruction, the glowing arcs that leapt from cloud to cloud, the booming roars of thunder that accompanied them. How something that appeared to be a mere strand of light could burn with intensity greater than my own, even if only for a split second before fading into memory. I wished to create a being that embodied that very power, striking with speed and power nearly unparalleled before racing away unharmed, yet unlike lightning this being would remain to strike again and again in aid of goodness at its whim. From this wish, imbued with my own radiant power was born the beast of yellow that you will know as the emperor of lightning, Raikou.

##### No longer do I believe that you will accept such noble aid.

As the glowing yellows of the sun shaped the first, I turned my attention to the next. I brought into being thoughts of the fire that had consumed the tower and brought it down- even such a pinnacle of construction toppled in a few moments by my own mighty element, so difficult to stop, transfixing to the eye, and yet so deadly. A being of twisting flame, balancing lithe agility with the grand stature of a Luxray or Pyroar, yet greater than both together. This time I wished to create a being that embodied the pure power of fire, strong yet graceful and giving, slower yet physically stronger than the other. I wished this being to battle at the side of humans, it's roar and my own Sacred Fire invigorating them to fight on with courage and heart. From that wish was born the beast called the emperor of blazing heat, Entei.

##### No longer do I believe that you will charge together.

When I turned to the last, I thought not of an element of destruction, but rather the life-giving element that runs within all of us. Calm and kind much of the time, yet able to fell cities and wash away all those in its path when it wished. The more gentle counterpart to its siblings who were born of destruction. Water that would wash away impurities, calm fighting spirits, and bring peace where it went. For this being, I wished it not to charge into the fray like the others, but to protect those it found against the ravages of battle. I wished this creature of water to be of aid even in times of peace, helping to rebuild from the destruction just as the rain whisked away the flames and saved the town. From this wish of calm came the Pokémon you will know as the crystalline monarch of water, Suicune.

##### No longer do I believe that it can heal you.

When I raised my fluttering wings and the three Beasts of legend were cleared from their shrouds of light, leaping up to perch upon the tiered roof where they could see and be seen, I expected confusion to follow. I knew that you humans would not expect for these dead beings to suddenly rise, radiating power in the way that a legendary Pokémon does. What I did not expect was for that confusion to turn to fear, nor for that fear to turn to hatred. I could see each pair of eyes change as they looked upon these reborn Pokémon, no longer dulled with horror but bright with fear and rage. Some of you gripped at rocks and debris, some threw what you held. Screeching children were thrust behind adults in needless fear, insults and threats hurled like spears. All without reason, for these Beasts had done nothing but appear.

##### No longer am I happy that I had returned them to life.

I was confused, taken aback. How could I not be, when I had used my greatest power to do something great in the face of this tragedy, and my creations were being greeted with hatred and violence. I couldn't understand what I saw. The very same residents who I'd held conversations with, watched over, cared for, watched as they battled and played, looked at my creations with faces contorted by fear and anger to a degree that I could scarcely comprehend. Weapons were being grabbed and hefted, attacks prepared. The situation was about to become the very war that I had created these beasts to protect you from. I looked into your hearts, and what I saw there made me rue my decision to pay you a kindness.

##### No longer do I trust you.

You felt little pity for the three that had so graciously given their lives, instead you felt selfishly happy that you had survived, caring little even for your loved ones. This selfishness had even spread to your Pokémon, corrupting their good natures. That was merely chief among what I saw when I looked, beyond your disguises and pretenses. I saw lust for power, want for battle, envy, all the things that I despised most, in the hearts of those that I'd trusted enough to never give those hearts a second look. You pressed forwards with your anger and the impromptu weapons you'd grabbed and I had to act, or you might have torn my creations apart on the spot.

##### No longer do I wish to remain here.

I spread my wings and bid my Beasts leave, and so they did. One to the north, one to the east, and one to the west. I doubt that they will ever choose to return. I made my decision in that moment, as my claws left the charred wood, that they would not touch it again. With these words I bid you my goodbyes with no regrets- except perhaps that I should have looked into your hearts sooner, when the evil qualities were only beginning to bud. Perhaps I could have stopped this. Not the storm, not the fire, not the deaths, but your reactions. I could have stopped you from acting with such malice. Yet now it is too late, and I cannot remain in a place populated with those who would kill what they do not understand.

##### No longer can I say that I truly care for you.

I cannot remain in a place where people always put strength over beauty, war over peace, fear over understanding, mind over heart and hatred over love. In moderation, all of these things are necessary. Love will not vanquish all evil, peace will not resolve every conflict, not everything beautiful is good and not everything powerful is bad. However, you humans do so too often. You do so far too often, reacting to light with darkness. So I must leave, wait for the day when you can remedy your own shortcomings, and when one among you is truly pure. Not flawless, for that is impossible, but one who battles against the natural negativity within. Until that day, I will fly without rest in search.

##### No longer will I be seen by you who have deceived me.

##### Not until I find a person worthy of being called a hero.


End file.
